When I was in the Marine Corp I was deployed to the Korean War right after basic training. You could smell the brutality and terror just by sitting around. Any second you could lose a leg, an arm, a hand, even possibly die. The third month of being in Korea felt as if the devil had raised all hell. My squad and I had to take control of a town that was full of enemies. This town was maybe thirty five klicks (kilometers) due north from where our base was. It was already approaching night fall so we had decided to travel about only fifteen klicks where later we would set up base. When my squad and I finally approached the end of setting up camp it was as dark as coal.


We had all woke up to a feeling of a moist morning, A morning that will soon turn to a day of war. Our squad later moved out at seven O’clock to take over the town. It took 9 hours until we finally arrived at the edge of this town. The town was as silent as the dead. There were bodies everywhere. They all were bone white. It had looked like the life was sucked right out of them. The worst part you could almost taste the flesh. I felt light headed and fatigue starting coming on, but ignored it because it was not the time and place to make noise. We had planned to stay hidden till morning when everybody was either asleep or just waking up. Of course it had started to rain cats and dogs. It hadn’t ended till the morning. We all scrambled to our feet and began to move in the town where we would either find our end or have a chance on keeping the lives we protected all this time.


We were little ants, weaving in and out of the building for cover. Everything was quite, but all of a sudden I heard my squad leader call us to him. He started to point to the middle of the town. There was a commander pointing a gun at a man. The commander was yelling while the man that was about to be shot was weeping. Then right before we started to charge he pulled the trigger. That man was now a lifeless soul lying on the ground. We all had the permission to attack, but instead we slaughtered killing every man and women that tried to take our lives. We ended that firefight and didn’t lose one man. The squad and I achieved on taking that town successfully and lived to see another day.